No, this sounds much cooler (if I still used my TiVo much, anyway): once they know how late the 4 o'clock game is going to run, they'll send a signal to your TiVo that will rewrite that night's CBS schedule information, so if "Cold Case" doesn't start until 9:18, the TiVo will record exactly from 9:18 to 10:18, etc. I think you may need to have your TiVo hooked up to a broadband connection, though.

It's an East Coast only issue but it is maddening. Fox used to have a similar problem and fixed it by not showing original programming until 8PM when the vast majority of the games are over. Maybe once Andy Rooney kicks CBS will cancel 60 minutes. As it stands now when Amazing Race is on I pad the recording an extra hour so it is 8-10. It is generally over by then.

despite the fact that my DVR is STILL DEAD (hiss) I've solved this problem by not watching CBS :-)

well, not totally. I do watch HIMYM but I think that's about it. It's easier to avoid watching the CW - which, now that Veronica's gone, I'm planning to do.(what was it you said about breakfast with Les?)

I was thinking it would require a broadband connection too, but maybe not. There might be enough remaining room in the unviewable portion of the TV signal where closed captioning is to put a code in there that TiVo might be able to read. (That's probably how those "thumbs up for more" notices during ads get launched as well.) It wouldn't even need to be much, just a simple stamp of the originally scheduled start time would go a long way towards solving this, plus it could solve the problem of live shows going long enough to get cut off.

Now, is such a thing compatible with (H)DTV? I don't know.

One problem, no matter what the solution, would be how to deal with those (few) people who TiVo both "60 Minutes" and "Family Guy" when "60" runs 30+ minutes late. Which one gets recorded? How does the viewer tell the TiVo which is preferred?